Obama appoints two women to the Department of Justice
January 6, 2009
by Sheryl Lee
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Dawn Johnsen
Dawn Johnsen, Obama’s pick to head the Office of Legal Counsel, has been critical of Bush administration torture memos. The Chicago Tribune reports:
Johnsen, currently a law professor at the Indiana University School of Law in Bloomington, was very critical of legal opinions on interrogation issued during the Bush administration by the small office of legal scholars that she will now head if confirmed
Elena Kagan
Elena Kagan, nominated by Obama to be solicitor general, will be the first woman to hold that post. Kagan was also the first female dean at Harvard Law School. She and Obama met in the 1990′s when the two were on the faculty at the University of Chicago Law School.
Kagan is a likely choice for the Supreme Court, if a seat becomes vacant in the future.
Ilya Shapiro, Cato Institute policy expert, reported the selection of Kagan. Click on the link to see who featured most prominently in the article.
Two good appointments by Obama. Let’s applaud them.
“Ditto Nancy”
Thanks for the post Sheryl.
Early on, interrogations for logistical and tactical information from detainees was obtained by the Iraqis. High profile detainees with operational intelligence were mostly turned over to the Jordanians and Syrians. The white horse Prof. Johnson rides into her new office and duties is essentially made of straw but I do commend gender placement. The black letter law of alliances and treaty obligations will let her sleep well at night because countries like Jordan and Syria will continue to obtain intelligence for us from high level operatives and detainees. My points are moot of course if one doesn’t believe there are real enemies in the world.
goesh – Points not at all moot in my view. I’m one of those who thinks “liberals” are missing the mark by having a naive view of the world at this point. There are, indeed, many who would love to destroy the U.S. And we need to address that reality, like it or not.
goesh,
I understand what you mean. I have just come to terms with the fact that Obama is unlikely to appoint anyone I will be thrilled with on policy but I can still applaud the choice of adding more women.
Well, goesh, I was going to respond that it is not just what we do, but what we are seen to do that matters, but digby put it much more eloquently:
“Apparently being against torture is now a crazed left wing ideological position built on “anger” at George Bush. And it’s incompetent, to boot.
I don’t know how many times people have to make this point, but when it comes to torture it is not a matter of being mad at bush or even simple human decency. It is a matter of competence as well. Not only does torture not work as an intelligence tool, the sincere and public repudiation of torture is essential to the success of Obama’s foreign policy. If he were to choose someone who was implicated in or associated with Bush’s torture regime, his credibility around the world would be damaged before he even begins. It would be dramatically incompetent for him not to make a clear distinction both to the intelligence community and the rest of the world between his policies and the Bush administration’s.”
He’s talking about the Leon Panetta appointment, of course.
Also see this bit of Panetta history, from his time in the Nixon administration. Reading that, his appointment makes much more sense to me, and not in a bad way.
[ETA: Let's hope Panetta doesn't find himself resigning from Obama's administration for the same reason he resigned from Nixon's. Honestly, though -- this looks like change I can believe in.]
I have a serious question. When did we decide it was OK to start calling ourselves “females” ? I thought we stopped that when we argued Vassar College out of that assignation, in the 1800′s. If you are going to participate in this sordid ritual, I better see some comparable quid pro quo in the male category. Or, add this:(WOMEN) as explanation.!!!###*@
Ok, low blood sugar, I started dinner, nibbled a little, and I take back the !!!###*@. I know in the hurry to get stuff out sometimes we just don’t see what we are doing. Just today I tried to assign AG status to Kagan. I knew better, but I did it anyway.On my tiny blog it won’t matter, but on yours, calling us females, even if it wasn’t your words, should at least be debated.
roofingbird: certainly, it can be debated. And you were right – I was paraphrasing the article I drew it from.
I called Caroline Kennedy a female human the other day. I don’t find the term demeaning, personally, but I understand that some liken it to identifying livestock.
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